Totally Awkward Tuesday

It's Tuesday which means time to dig deep. Check out Tova's site for details if you would like to participate.

When I was a sophomore in high school I had a debate colleague that was a senior (not the guy who I posted about before). He was SUPER smart and a really nice guy (read= not cute at all, not even in a weird geeky kind of way). He and another senior tried to ditch their female colleagues to pair up for the upcoming tournament which was kind of a dick sort of move in the debate world b/c it left the two girls out in the cold. The coach thought it was not a cool thing to do either so in punishment he got assigned to be my pair for the season. As insulted as I was to be the "punishment" I was no dummy either. He was good which meant I was going to be good for the season.

In debate you are kind of forced to spend lots of time with your partner outside of school. This meant after school study sessions, weekend tournaments, and hours spent in the library. Senior guy was always very sweet, polite, and just an all round nice guy (but still not the least bit attractive even after getting to know him). So one night he was over at my house for the evening working on debate stuff. After he left I went back to my room and noticed that he left one of his notebooks. It was left open but in all honesty even if it wasn't left open I probably would have opened it and flipped through it anyways. Seriously you would have too, not to mention that we were working on debate how was I supposed to know that it wasn't going to be debate stuff.

Debate stuff it was not. In fact so far from it that I read the entire notebook cover to cover and sat with my mouth hanging open trying to figure out what I was going to do. What, you ask, was in the notebook?

Poetry.

Short journal entries.

Odes to........ME.

In short it looked like a private diary. At first when I read I thought it was just writings. You know stories about devotion, and secret crushes, and blah blah blah. It was touching. However, as I continued to read (trust I wanted to stop really I did but I couldn't put it down) I quickly realized that they were all about me. I am not a vain person just assuming anything. The stories would be about situations we would have or conversations that we had and how he wished he had the courage to tell me how he felt. He talked about what he loved about me. As touching as it was it was also just weird. The revelation was not even close to the biggest issue. The biggest issue was going to be giving it back to him. He had to know that he left the notebook at my house (I am still not sure it wasn't on purpose) and he had to wonder if I saw anything (although he was super smart remember?). Some how I was going to have to face the music and give it back to him. I was also going to have to be completely honest and tell him that the feelings were not mutual.

So the next day I gave him back his notebook in class. I was very nonchalant about it and just said "I think you left this at my house last night". He looked me straight in the eyes and like a coward I just looked down and got busy working. I had this whole speech about how he was a nice guy and blah blah blah but I just couldn't do it. I reasoned to myself that maybe if I left it alone he could tell himself that I didn't read it and that I just didn't know. I reasoned to myself that it would be better for him that way. One look at his face told me that he knew. The silence that hung between us the rest of that class was thick with awkwardness. Things didn't get any better from there. We rarely spoke and when we did it was all business. It got to the point that my coach (who I was very close to) called me out on it. The weird part was that he knew. He gave me so much crap about the crush that I have never been that crimson colored before or since. The senior and I made it to the national tournament for debate that year. We also medaled at nationals and state. The only time we saw each other was in class and at each round. In between we went in opposite directions but the chemestry was enough to make it work.

He had a child a few months ago and is doing very well for himself. My coach was right in that he has done very well for himself and is make way more money than I will ever see...but I still don't have the tiniest speck of interest not even a flash of attraction.